DAISY: It's fire proof...
Is an excellent acoustic and thermal insulator
and it's NASA's Commercial invention of the year.
What is it? Find out next... on Real World.
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DAISY: This is what it sounds like outside of an airplane...
[jet noise]
And this is what it sounds like inside of the airplane...
still pretty loud.
But thanks to technology developed by NASA, it might soon sound like this...
[quiet] First class sound-proofing.
And that's just one of the applications for a versatile
product co-developed by NASA chemists and a private
company called Polyumac Techno Core.
ERIK WEISER: This technology, we call it LaRC FPF-44.
It's a flexible polyimide foam.
DAISY: Erik Weiser is a Materials Engineer and the
assistant branch head of Advanced Materials and
Processing at NASA's Langley Research Center.
ERIK: This material is a low density, flexible foam
DAISY: Density equals mass divided by volume.
ERIK: Very low density, open cell foam and that's good for acoustic insulation.
And what you're hoping for is that the sound comes in
and gets trapped, inside the foam.
ERIK: Erik and his teammates Roberto Cano and Brian Jensen,
work here at Langley's Advanced Materials and Processing Branch.
Beyond these walls, they are developing a material that
will have its advantages over fiberglass, which is a
standard airplane cabin insulator.
Together with Juan Miguel Vazquez at Polyumac Technicore,
they have come up with a new material that they think will
have significant commercial applications.
ERIK: Through testing and some modifications we've done
we're on the right track for developing a replacement for fiberglass.
DAISY: In addition to excellent acoustic insulation properties,
the foam also absorbs heat,
making it an excellent thermal insulator.
Plus... it's fire resistant.
The team is working to make a version of the product that
is a similar in density to fiberglass, which weighs in
at about six and a half kilograms per cubic meter.
ERIK: The aircraft industry would like the lightest
acoustic treatment it can get. So we're trying to reduce the density.
DAISY: And it's not just airplanes...
Polyimide foam's flexibility and ability to handle extreme
conditions make it excellent for use in spacecraft.
ERIK: This actually is a thermal formed article that
we did as a test application for the space shuttle, where
they have an icing issue on the feed line bracket.
DAISY: It's great for watercraft, too.
The United States Navy uses more polyimide foam than any other organization.
ERIK: Several classes of Navy ships, they use polyimide
foam as interior wall insulation and pipe covers.
Its thermal and acoustic insulation and its non flammable.
So that's key on a navy ship, the protection of the sailors.
DAISY: The NASA Langley team has spent a lot of time in
the lab, refining the process to get the foam just right.
ERIK: The isocyanate and the dianhydride will form the foam,
the polyimide, the base, then you have other components in
there that make it more flexible, control the bubble size,
and then you have flame retardant. There's a
catalyst to get the reaction started, to cause the
reaction to happen at a certain rate.
DAISY: These guys make it look pretty easy.
But it's a little trickier than it sounds.
ERIC: So what you are trying to do is contain the gas
that's in the cells, that holds it inflated, at the
same time, rigidizing the outside structure, sort of like a balloon.
And once that balloon becomes hard,
then you want the gas out of the system.
You've got a competition going between stabilizing
the system and getting the bubbles out. If you
stabilize it before the gas comes out, as you continue to
heat up the gas it'll keep expanding and blow it apart.
So this is what happens when it goes wrong.
DAISY: As chemists continue to refine it and the
processes involved in making it,
polyimide foam could be produced on a mass scale,
dropping the price to a point where it would be cost
effective to put it in homes and other buildings,
providing a more efficient insulator than that typically used in such dwellings.
Polyimide foam... pretty cool stuff.
So cool, it was recently names NASA commercial invention of the year.
A shout out to Erik, Roberto, Brian and Juan
who were all honored for their work.
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